"Oh, the taste is foul!" Bellatrix exclaimed, recoiling at the flavour of the Tissue Regrowth Serum. She gagged a little and nearly vomited. The taste was so profoundly bitter that she just couldn't take it, until finally a Mediwitch beside her held out a goblet and murmured,
"Sweet juice for you, to take away the awful taste, my dear. You'll need that serum three times a day, love."
Bellatrix gladly accepted the goblet, and she sipped deeply from the fruit juice inside. She gulped it down, and it did help erase some of the flavour. She handed the goblet back, and then she felt an awful pain in her lower chest.
"Ahhh… Ahhhhh!" Bellatrix clutched at her chest, and the Mediwitch pushed her back onto her partially reclined bed by her shoulder.
"Hush, dear. You're going to have some pain as the tissue regrows. If we give you Anodyne Draught for the pain, the serum won't work. You'll just have to deal with the pain, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, my dear."
"But it stings!" Bellatrix breathed in and then gasped in horror at the feel of doing so. The very feel of air entering her lungs was like breathing fire, and she whimpered helplessly. She clutched her ribs and stared around the ward. Across from her bed, a wizard lay motionless in his bed - the victim of a Draught of Living Death overdose, she understood. In the next bed from him, a witch lay covered in some sort of awful boils. Bellatrix glanced toward the large window at the end of the unit and saw that it was raining outside in the London streets. She tried to distract herself from the pain in her chest as the Mediwitch packed up her rolling cart with the potions she'd brought.
This morning, Bellatrix had been dosed with anti-pneumonial potion intended to draw out the fluid in her lungs. She'd also been given a BronchoDilation Draught to open her airways and Strengthening Solution to give her body the ability to rebuild. Finally, she'd been dosed with Tissue Regrowth Serum. Now, the Mediwitch packed up her cart, and she pulled out her wand as she said,
"And now the Toxin Removal Charms, which we'll do three times per day. All of this will be done three times per day, my dear. A strict regimen to heal you."
"Yes, of course." Bellatrix buckled over from the pain, but she forced herself back and lay against the bed as she put her hands to her sides and stared up at the Mediwitch. "Ready."
The Mediwitch, a pretty blonde woman with a tiny waist beneath her crisp white apron, aimed her wand at Bellatrix and incanted carefully,
"Trahendo Venenum. Trahendo Vapor. Trahendo Venenum. Trahendo Vapor. Trahendo Venenum. Trahendo Vapor."
With every recitation of the spells, Bellatrix felt a little tug in her lungs. She felt the urge to cough, and she hacked painfully a few times.
"Have to bring it up, I'm afraid," the Mediwitch said. Once Bellatrix had coughed ten or twelve times, it subsided, and the Mediwitch handed Bellatrix a goblet of water. "Now," she said, "You rest. Healer's orders. Rest up. I'll be back round lunchtime to do all of this again. If you need anything, pull the rope beside your bed to summon us."
"Thanks." Bellatrix frowned deeply as she tipped her head back against the bed. She sighed and felt the sting and burn in her chest, and then she asked the Mediwitch, "When are visiting hours?"
"Five to eight this evening, dear," she answered. "We keep strict hours on this ward because it's high acuity. That means our patients are quite ill, and so we only have visitors three hours a day. Sorry."
"All right." Bellatrix shut her eyes, deciding to do as they'd commanded and rest.
He walked up to her bed at one minute past five. He had a parcel under one arm, wrapped in brown paper, and a fabric shopping bag on his other arm. He pulled up the visitor's chair beside Bellatrix's bed and sat at once, wandlessly drawing the curtains tightly round her bed and bending to kiss her lips gently.
"What treatments are they giving you?" he asked without pretense, and Bellatrix replied in a voice hoarse from all the forced coughing,
"They're drawing out the remnants of the gas with spellwork. They've done it three times today, most recently ten minutes ago."
He nodded. "And the potions?"
"Anti-pneumonial potion," she replied. "BronchoDilation Draught. Strengthening Solution. Tissue Regrowth Serum. I've received all of those three times, too."
He sighed deeply and nodded again. "Good. If they keep all of that up, they'll have you healed in no time, Bella."
"Are you certain?" Bellatrix's eyes welled a little. "The Mediwitch says I'm very ill."
"Well, you are very ill, but you're going to be better very soon," said Mr Riddle. He brought Bellatrix's knuckles to his lips, and he asked, "Have you had dinner yet?"
"No," she confessed. "I don't know why they put visiting hours during dinner hours. The House-Elves are bringing my food any minute."
"I'll watch you eat," he smirked, and Bellatrix laughed a little. She studied his face then, and a realisation came over her that frightened her.
She was falling in love with him.
His smile faded, and he just kissed her knuckles again, and she knew he'd been inside of her mind. They were serious and quiet for a long moment, until at last she gathered the courage to ask,
"What's in the parcel and the bag?"
"Oh." He handed her the box, which she shyly unwrapped. He Vanished the paper just like he'd done on Christmas with her wrapping paper, and when she opened the box, she saw a cosy-looking pair of black velvet slippers. She gasped and pulled them out, and Mr Riddle said,
"You're going to be stuck meandering to and from a bed for some time. I thought you might like to have something warm and fuzzy on your feet."
"But these are marvelous," Bellatrix mused, pulling them onto her bare feet beneath the blankets. They felt warm and comforting, and she reached for his face and held his cheek for a moment. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
"It's nothing," he insisted. She wanted to tell him that it was everything, but he just blinked a few times and said, "I wrote to your grandparents. On both sides - the Blacks and the Rosiers. It's bad enough they've lost their children and grandchildren; they deserve to know that their remaining granddaughter is in hospital with a serious illness."
"And what did they say?" asked Bellatrix. Mr Riddle shrugged.
"Your Grandfather Pollux is a friend of mine, so to speak. He's a donor to the movement. So he wrote back to me at once. Asked me to keep him and your Grandmother Irma apprised of how you're doing. They're extremely concerned. The Rosiers, as you know, live in France, so I haven't heard back yet. But everyone's worried, Bella. I did… I… I wrote to Dumbledore."
Bellatrix's eyes went wide. "You wrote to Albus Dumbledore?"
He nodded. "I needed to -"
"Miss Bellatrix Black?"
Suddenly a House-Elf came round the curtain, carrying a wooden tray with a plate of food and a goblet of water, and Bellatrix sighed reluctantly. She let the Elf put the tray onto the sliding table that came over the bed, and once the House-Elf had left, she poked her fork at the sliced turkey with gravy, steamed peas, and mashed potato, and she turned to Mr Riddle.
"Want some?"
"No. Thank you," he said with a little smile. Bellatrix stabbed some turkey and cut a bite, and as she chewed, Mr Riddle finished explaining,
"I needed to let Dumbledore know that you weren't coming back to school."
"I could have done that," Bellatrix insisted, her mouth full of turkey. But Mr Riddle rolled his eyes and said,
"Dumbledore has eyes everywhere. I'm sure he already knew you were here, and I'm sure he already knew that I brought you here. Better communicate it all on my own terms. I told him to get your things from the Slytherin girls' dormitory and have them sent by Apparition Messenger to Malfoy Manor. I'll keep your trunk safe until you come home."
"Home." Bellatrix stared at him, and he tipped his head.
"You know what I mean."
"Yes." Bellatrix speared a few peas and ate them, and then suddenly she choked. She felt like she was inhaling the peas, and she coughed and hacked roughly on them. Mr Riddle flew to his feet and whipped out his wand.
"Finite Strangulatio!"
The peas flew out of Bellatrix's mouth and landed on her tray, and she coughed so hard she nearly vomited.
"What's going on in here?" The curtains whipped open, and a Healer in lime green robes appeared with a Mediwitch.
"She was choking on peas," Mr Riddle said. Bellatrix coughed harder than ever, until the Healer aimed his wand at her and incanted,
"Finite Tussim. Patet Faucium."
Bellatrix's coughing quieted. The Healer - an elderly wizard called Healer Mills - said quietly to the Mediwitch,
"Clear her food tray and fetch more BronchoDilation Draught."
"Yes, Healer Mills." The Mediwitch came and took Bellatrix's tray away, and she supposed her dinner was over. Healer Mills asked Mr Riddle,
"Do you intend on staying the whole of the visiting hours, sir?"
"I'll do whatever is best for Bella." Mr Riddle sounded unnerved, but the Healer nodded and said,
"I think it best that you do stay all the way to eight o'clock, if you don't mind, sir. We'll get another dose of BronchoDilation Draught in her, and then I'd appreciate a pair of eyes directly on her for a few hours."
"Yes, of course." Mr Riddle slowly sank back down into his chair, and he rather brazenly took Bellatrix's hand right there in front of the Healer. The Mediwitch came back in and dosed Bellatrix with the sticky, grainy BronchoDilation Draught, and then she could feel her airways opening up a bit. She leaned back against the bed, feeling drowsy from the medication, and she said in a sorrowful voice to Mr Riddle,
"They've doubled me up on this stuff. Now I'm as loopy as can be. Sorry."
"I don't mind." He reached for the shopping bag he'd brought, and he asked her, "Have you got a preference? I've brought you a murder mystery, a sappy romance, and a history."
"Books." Bellatrix smiled a bit to herself, staring up at the ceiling. She felt so tired, and yet she was so happy. So, so happy. She turned her face slowly to look at Mr Riddle, quirking up half a grin at him, and she asked,
"You went into Flourish and Blotts on a rainy day just to bring me books?"
"Maybe I did." He tipped up his chin. "So. Will it be the mystery, the romance, or the history?"
"The murder mystery, to be certain," Bellatrix said gravely, and Mr Riddle smirked as he pulled a book out from the bag. He opened it, cleared his throat, and began to read.
"Young Mr Sorkin was the envy of all Caddington, what with his extensive collection of high-quality broomsticks. But what Mr Sorkin did not know was that certain people had their eyes on his broomsticks, and jealousy can be one of humanity's strongest motivators."
Two weeks later, she was worse.
She didn't know how it was possible for all the potions, all the spells to be doing less than nothing, but there she was, lying in her bed, worse.
"I don't understand," said Mr Riddle one day when he came to visit. He'd demanded to speak with Healer Mills when he'd come for visiting hours, because Bellatrix was now a disastrous mess. She was white-faced, she knew, for he'd Conjured a mirror to show her how awful she looked. When she breathed, there was a rattle and a growl with each breath. Her coughing came in fits now, strong, terrible fits that occasionally brought up stringy, bloody messes.
"How is she worse?" demanded Mr Riddle angrily, and Healer Mills admitted,
"The spells intended to draw out the remnants of the gas are not doing so. We performed another imagery yesterday, and we found that the damage is worsening and continuing. Her symptoms are getting worse because the damage is getting worse, and we are unable to stop the damage."
"But you must stop the damage!" growled Mr Riddle. A crackle of magic snapped in the air around him, his power let loose by anger. Healer Mills seemed afraid as he said,
"We are doing absolutely everything we know how to do."
"Then you are incompetent fools!" yelled Mr Riddle. "I need you to save this witch's life. Do you understand me? Do you understand the consequences if she… if…"
"Please," croaked Bellatrix from the bed. Mr Riddle looked over his shoulder at her, pinching his lips. He shook his head firmly and huffed,
"I could heal her with a Coalesco Amalgam."
"Sir," scoffed Healer Mills in disbelief, "Those… Dark… spells are remarkably dangerous for both parties and carry permanent consequences. We do not advocate them here, and we do not perform them here."
"Wait. What's a Coalesco… a what?" Bellatrix sat up slowly in her bed and coughed a few times.
"A Coalesco Amalgam," pronounced Mr Riddle, "is one where the bodily strength of one person rejuvenates a dying person. In exchange, the soul of the dying person is bound in many complicated ways to the soul of the person who gave them life."
"It is a terrible idea!" insisted Healer Mills.
"Your damned potions and charms are doing less than nothing! She is dying!" snarled Mr Riddle. "She is of age. Let her decide! Death here in your hospital bed, or the consequences of a Coalesco Amalgam with me."
Bellatrix didn't even hesitate for a moment before she looked Mr Riddle straight in the eye and said in her hoarse voice,
"I choose you."
Author's Note: So, he's not willing to let her die. But just what are these complicated ways in which her soul will be bound to his? And we still haven't heard from Dumbledore… hm… I would REALLY appreciate it if you get a quick second to leave your feedback - I really do want to know what you think of this story! Thanks!